arXiv subjects

Laurent Gizon

Publications and source records attributed to Laurent Gizon.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Inferring solar differential rotation and viscosity via passive imaging with inertial waves

The recent discovery of inertial waves on the surface of the Sun offers new possibilities to learn about the solar interior. These waves are long-lived with a period on the order of the Sun rotation period ($\sim$27 days) and are sensitive to parameters deep inside the Sun. They are excited by turbulent convection, leading to a passive imaging problem. In this work, we present the forward and inverse problem of reconstructing viscosity and differential rotation on the Sun from cross-covariance observations of these inertial waves.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Quantitative passive imaging by iterative holography: The example of helioseismic holography

In passive imaging, one attempts to reconstruct some coefficients in a wave equation from correlations of observed randomly excited solutions to this wave equation. Many methods proposed for this class of inverse problem so far are only qualitative, e.g., trying to identify the support of a perturbation. Major challenges are the increase in dimensionality when computing correlations from primary data in a preprocessing step, and often very poor pointwise signal-to-noise ratios. In this paper, we propose an approach that addresses both of these challenges: It works only on the primary data while implicitly using the full information contained in the correlation data, and it provides quantitative estimates and convergence by iteration. Our work is motivated by helioseismic holography, a well-established imaging method to map heterogenities and flows in the solar interior. We show that the back-propagation used in classical helioseismic holography can be interpreted as the adjoint of the Fréchet derivative of the operator which maps the properties of the solar interior to the correlation data on the solar surface. The theoretical and numerical framework for passive imaging problems developed in this paper extends helioseismic holography to nonlinear problems and allows for quantitative reconstructions. We present a proof of concept in uniform media.

math.NA↗

arXiv2024

Stellar Surface Magnetic Fields Impact Limb Darkening

Stars appear darker at their limbs than at their disk centers because at the limb we are viewing the higher and cooler layers of stellar photospheres. Limb darkening derived from state-of-the-art stellar atmosphere models systematically fails to reproduce recent transiting exoplanet light curves from the Kepler, TESS, and JWST telescopes -- stellar brightness obtained from measurements drops less steeply towards the limb than predicted by models. All previous models assumed atmosphere devoid of magnetic fields. Here we use our new stellar atmosphere models computed with the 3D radiative magneto-hydrodynamic code MURaM to show that small-scale concentration of magnetic fields on the stellar surface affect limb darkening at a level that allows us to explain the observations. Our findings provide a way forward to improve the determination of exoplanet radii and especially the transmission spectroscopy analysis for transiting planets, which relies on a very accurate description of stellar limb darkening from the visible through the infrared. Furthermore, our findings imply that limb darkening allows measuring the small-scale magnetic field on stars with transiting planets.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Learned infinite elements for helioseismology -- Learning transparent boundary conditions for the solar atmosphere

Context. Acoustic waves in the Sun are affected by the atmospheric layers, but this region is often ignored in forward models due to the increase in computational cost. Aims. The purpose of this work is to take into account the solar atmosphere without increasing significantly the computational cost. Methods. We solve a scalar wave equation that describes the propagation of acoustic modes inside the Sun using a finite element method. The boundary conditions used to truncate the computational domain are learned from the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator, that is the relation between the solution and its normal derivative at the computational boundary. These boundary conditions may be applied at any height above which the background medium is assumed to be radially symmetric. Results. Taking into account the atmosphere is important even for wave frequencies below the acoustic cut-off. In particular, the mode frequencies computed for an isothermal atmosphere differ by up 10 μHz from those computed for the VAL-C atmospheric model. We show that learned infinite elements lead to a numerical accuracy similar to that obtained for a traditional radiation boundary condition. Its main advantage is to reproduce the solution for any radially symmetric atmosphere to a very good accuracy at a low computational cost. Conclusions. This work emphasizes the importance of including atmospheric layers in helioseismology and proposes a computationally efficient method to do so.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2024

Temporal Variation of Solar Equatorial Rossby Modes with Azimuthal Orders $6\leq m \leq 10$

We use nearly two decades of helioseismic data obtained from the GONG (2002-2020) and HMI (2010-2020) ring-diagram pipelines to examine the temporal variations of the properties of individual equatorial Rossby modes with azimuthal orders in the range $6 \le m \le 10$. We find that the mode parameters obtained from GONG and HMI are consistent during the data overlapping period of 2010-2020. The power and the frequency of each mode exhibit significant temporal variations over the full observing period. Using the GONG data during solar cycles 23 and 24, we find that the mode power averaged over $6 \le m \le 10$ shows a positive correlation with the sunspot number ($0.42$), while the averaged frequency shift is anti-correlated ($-0.91$). The anti-correlation between the average mode power and frequency shift is $-0.44$.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Detecting stellar activity cycles in p-mode travel times: Proof of concept using SOHO/VIRGO solar observations

The eleven year solar cycle is known to affect the global modes of solar acoustic oscillations. In particular, p mode frequencies increase with solar activity. We propose a new method to detect the solar cycle from the p-mode autocorrelation function, and we validate this method using VIRGO/SPM photometric time series from solar cycles 23 and 24. The p-mode autocorrelation function shows multiple wavepackets separated by time lags of $\sim$123 min. Using a one-parameter fitting method (from local helioseismology), we measure the seismic travel times from each wavepacket up to skip number 40. We find that the travel-time variations due to the solar cycle depend sensitively on the skip number, with the strongest signature in odd skips from 17 to 31. Taking the noise covariance into account, the travel-time perturbations can be averaged over all skip numbers to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio. This method is robust to noise, simpler to implement than peak bagging in the frequency domain, and is promising for asteroseismology. We estimate that the activity cycle of a Sun-like star should be detectable with this new method in Kepler-like observations down to a visual magnitude of $m_K \sim 11$. However, for fainter stars, activity cycles are easier to detect in the photometric variability on rotational timescales.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Dynamics of solar large-scale flows

The Sun's axisymmetric large-scale flows, differential rotation and meridional circulation, are thought to be maintained by the influence of rotation on the thermal-convective motions in the solar convection zone. These large-scale flows are crucial for maintaining the Sun's global magnetic field. Over the last several decades, our understanding of large-scale motions in the Sun has significantly improved, both through observational and theoretical efforts. Helioseismology has constrained the flow topology in the solar interior, and the growth of supercomputers has enabled simulations that can self-consistently generate large scale flows in rotating spherical convective shells. In this chapter, we review our current understanding of solar convection and the large-scale flows present in the Sun, including those associated with the recently discovered inertial modes of oscillation. We discuss some issues still outstanding, and provide an outline of future efforts needed to address these.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Testing MURaM and MPS-ATLAS against the quiet solar spectrum

Three-dimensional (3D) radiative magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulations are the only way to model stellar atmospheres without any ad hoc parameterisations. Several 3D radiative MHD codes have achieved good quantitative agreement with observables for our Sun. We aim to validate the most up-to-date version of the MURaM code against well established quiet Sun measurements, in particular spatially averaged measurements that are relevant for stellar studies. This validation extends the number of solar observables that MURaM can reproduce with high precision. It is also an essential condition for using MURaM to accurately calculate spectra of other cool stars. We simulate the solar upper convection zone and photosphere harbouring a small-scale-dynamo. Using time series of 3D snapshots we calculate the spectral irradiance, limb darkening and selected spectral lines, which we compare to observations. The computed observables agree well with the observations, in particular the limb darkening of the quiet Sun is reproduced remarkably well.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Detecting active latitudes of Sun-like stars using asteroseismic a-coefficients

We introduce a framework to measure the asphericity of Sun-like stars using $a_1$, $a_2$ and $a_4$ coefficients, and constrain their latitudes of magnetic activity. Systematic errors on the inferred coefficients are evaluated in function of key physical and seismic parameters (inclination of rotation axis, average rotation, height-to-noise ratio of peaks in power spectrum). The measured a-coefficients account for rotational oblateness and the effect of surface magnetic activity. We use a simple model that assumes a single latitudinal band of activity. Using solar SOHO/VIRGO/SPM data, we demonstrate the capability of the method to detect the mean active latitude and its intensity changes between 1999-2002 (maximum of activity) and 2006-2009 (minimum of activity). We further apply the method to study the solar-analogue stars 16 Cyg A and B using Kepler observations. An equatorial band of activity, exhibiting intensity that could be comparable to that of the Sun, is detected in 16 Cyg A. However, 16 Cyg B exhibits a bi-modality in $a_4$ that is challenging to explain. We suggest that this could be a manifestation of the transition between a quiet and an active phase of activity. Validating or invalidating this hypothesis may require new observations.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

TESS Asteroseismic Analysis of HD 76920: The Giant Star Hosting An Extremely Eccentric Exoplanet

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission searches for new exoplanets. The observing strategy of TESS results in high-precision photometry of millions of stars across the sky, allowing for detailed asteroseismic studies of individual systems. In this work, we present a detailed asteroseismic analysis of the giant star HD 76920 hosting a highly eccentric giant planet ($e = 0.878$) with an orbital period of 415 days, using 5 sectors of TESS light curve that cover around 140 days of data. Solar-like oscillations in HD 76920 are detected around $52 \, μ$Hz by TESS for the first time. By utilizing asteroseismic modeling that takes classical observational parameters and stellar oscillation frequencies as constraints, we determine improved measurements of the stellar mass ($1.22 \pm 0.11\, M_\odot$), radius ($8.68 \pm 0.34\,R_\odot$), and age ($5.2 \pm 1.4\,$Gyr). With the updated parameters of the host star, we update the semi-major axis and mass of the planet as $a=1.165 \pm 0.035$ au and $M_{\rm p}\sin{i} = 3.57 \pm 0.22\,M_{\rm Jup}$. With an orbital pericenter of $0.142 \pm 0.005$ au, we confirm that the planet is currently far away enough from the star to experience negligible tidal decay until being engulfed in the stellar envelope. We also confirm that this event will occur within about 100\,Myr, depending on the stellar model used.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Revised extinctions and radii for 1.5 million stars observed by APOGEE, GALAH, and RAVE

Asteroseismology has become widely accepted as a benchmark for accurate and precise fundamental stellar properties. It can therefore be used to validate and calibrate stellar parameters derived from other approaches. Meanwhile, one can leverage large-volume surveys in photometry, spectroscopy, and astrometry to infer stellar parameters over a wide range of evolutionary stages, independently of asteroseismology. Our pipeline, SEDEX, compares the spectral energy distribution predicted by the MARCS and BOSZ model spectra with 32 photometric bandpasses, combining data from 9 major, large-volume photometric surveys. We restrict the analysis to targets with available spectroscopy from the APOGEE, GALAH, and RAVE surveys to lift the temperature-extinction degeneracy. The cross-survey atmospheric parameter and uncertainty estimates are homogenized with artificial neural networks. Validation of our results with CHARA interferometry, HST CALSPEC spectrophotometry, and asteroseismology, shows that we achieve high precision and accuracy. We present a catalog of improved interstellar extinction ($σ_{A_V} \simeq$ 0.14 mag) and stellar radii ($σ_R/R \simeq$ 7.4\%) for $\sim$1.5 million stars in the low- to high-extinction ($A_V \lesssim 6 $ mag) fields observed by the spectroscopic surveys. We derive global extinctions for 184 Gaia DR2 open clusters, and confirm the differential extinction in NGC 6791 and NGC 6819 that have been subject to extensive asteroseismic analysis. Furthermore, we report 36,854 double-lined spectroscopic main-sequence binary candidates. This catalog will be valuable for providing constraints on detailed modelling of stars and for constructing 3D dust maps of the Kepler field, the TESS CVZs, and the PLATO long duration observation fields.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2023

Solaris: A Focused Solar Polar Discovery-class Mission to achieve the Highest Priority Heliophysics Science Now

Solaris is a transformative Solar Polar Discovery-class mission concept to address crucial outstanding questions that can only be answered from a polar vantage. Solaris will image the Sun's poles from ~75 degree latitude, providing new insight into the workings of the solar dynamo and the solar cycle, which are at the foundation of our understanding of space weather and space climate. Solaris will also provide enabling observations for improved space weather research, modeling and prediction, revealing a unique, new view of the corona, coronal dynamics and CME eruptions from above.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

Imaging individual active regions on the Sun's far side with improved helioseismic holography

Helioseismic holography is a useful method to detect active regions on the Sun's far side and improve space weather forecasts. We aim to improve helioseismic holography by using a clear formulation of the problem, an accurate forward solver in the frequency domain, and a better understanding of the noise properties. Building on the work of Lindsey et al., we define the forward- and backward-propagated wave fields (ingression and egression) in terms of a Green's function. This Green's function is computed using an accurate forward solver in the frequency domain. We analyse overlapping segments of 31 hr of SDO/HMI dopplergrams, with a cadence of 24 hr. Phase shifts between the ingression and the egression are measured and averaged to detect active regions on the far side. The phase maps are compared with direct EUV intensity maps from STEREO/EUVI. We confirm that medium-size active regions can be detected on the far side with high confidence. Their evolution (and possible emergence) can be monitored on a daily time scale. Seismic maps averaged over 3 days provide an active region detection rate as high as 75% and a false discovery rate only as low as 7%, for active regions with areas above one thousandth of an hemisphere. For a large part, these improvements can be attributed to the use of a complete Green's function (all skips) and to the use of all observations on the front side (full pupil). Improved helioseismic holography enables the study of the evolution of medium-size active regions on the Sun's far side.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2022

Superflares on solar-like stars: A new method for identifying the true flare sources in photometric surveys

Over the past years, thousands of stellar flares have been detected by harvesting data from large photometric surveys. These detections, however, do not account for potential sources of contamination such as background stars appearing in the same aperture as the primary target. We present a new method for identifying the true flare sources in large photometric surveys using data from the Kepler mission. Potential flares are identified in two steps: first, we search the light curves for at least two subsequent data points exceeding a 5σ threshold above the running mean. For these two cadences, we subtract the "quiet" stellar flux from the Kepler pixel data to obtain new images where the potential flare is the main light source. In the second step, we use a Bayesian approach to fit the point spread function of the instrument to determine the most likely location of the flux excess on the detector. We applied our method to 5862 main-sequence stars with near-solar effective temperatures. We found 2274 events exceeding the 5-sigma in at least two consecutive points in the light curves. Applying the second step reduced this number to 342 superflares. Of these, 283 flares happened on 178 target stars, 47 events are associated with fainter background stars, and in 10 cases, the flare location cannot be distinguished between the target and a background star. We also present cases where flares have been reported previously but our technique could not attribute them to the target star. We conclude that 1) identifying outliers in the light curves alone is insufficient to attribute them to stellar flares and 2) flares can only be uniquely attributed to a certain star when the instrument pixel-level data together with the point spread function are taken into account. As a consequence, previous flare statistics are likely contaminated by instrumental effects and unresolved astrophysical sources.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2022

Theory of solar oscillations in the inertial frequency range: Amplitudes of equatorial modes from a nonlinear rotating convection simulation

Several types of inertial modes have been detected on the Sun. Properties of these inertial modes have been studied in the linear regime but have not been studied in nonlinear simulations of solar rotating convection. Comparing the nonlinear simulations, the linear theory, and the solar observations is important to better understand the differences between the models and the real Sun. We wish to detect and characterize the modes present in a nonlinear numerical simulation of solar convection, in particular to understand the amplitudes and lifetimes of the modes. We developed a code with a Yin-Yang grid to carry out fully-nonlinear numerical simulations of rotating convection in a spherical shell. The stratification is solar-like up to 0.96R. The simulations cover a duration of about 15 solar years. Various large-scale modes at low frequencies are extracted from the simulation. Their characteristics are compared to those from the linear model and to the observations. Among other modes, both the equatorial Rossby modes and the columnar convective modes are seen in the simulation. The columnar convective modes contain most of the large-scale velocity power outside the tangential cylinder and substantially contribute to the heat and angular momentum transport. Equatorial Rossby modes with no radial node (n=0) are also found: They have the same spatial structures as the linear eigenfunctions. They are stochastically excited by convection and have the amplitudes of a few m/s and mode linewidths of about 20-30 nHz, which are comparable to those observed on the Sun. We also confirm the existence of the mixed modes between the equatorial Rossby modes and the columnar convective modes in our nonlinear simulation, as predicted by the linear eigenmode analysis. We also see the high-latitude mode with m=1 in our nonlinear simulation but its amplitude is much weaker than that observed on the Sun.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2022

Evolution of Dipolar Mixed-mode Coupling Factor in Red Giant Stars: Impact of Buoyancy Spike

Mixed modes observed in red giants allow for investigation of the stellar interior structures. One important feature in these structures is the buoyancy spike caused by the discontinuity of the chemical gradient left behind during the first dredge-up. The buoyancy spike emerges at the base of the convective zone in low-luminosity red giants and later becomes a glitch when the g-mode cavity expands to encompass the spike. Here, we study the impact of the buoyancy spike on the dipolar mixed modes using stellar models with different properties. We find that the applicability of the asymptotic formalisms for the coupling factor, q, varies depending on the location of the evanescent zone, relative to the position of the spike. Significant deviations between the value of q inferred from fitting the oscillation frequencies and either of the formalisms proposed in the literature are found in models with a large frequency separation in the interval 5 to 15 microHz, with evanescent zones located in a transition region which may be thin or thick. However, it is still possible to reconcile q with the predictions from the asymptotic formalisms, by choosing which formalism to use according to the value of q. For stars approaching the luminosity bump, the buoyancy spike becomes a glitch and strongly affects the mode frequencies. Fitting the frequencies without accounting for the glitch leads to unphysical variations in the inferred q, but we show that this is corrected when properly accounting for the glitch in the fitting.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2022

Contribution of flows around active regions to the north-south helioseismic travel-time measurements

Context. In local helioseismology, the travel times of acoustic waves propagating in opposite directions along the same meridian inform us about horizontal flows in the north-south direction. The longitudinal averages of the north-south helioseismic travel-time shifts vary with the sunspot cycle. Aims. We aim to study the contribution of inflows into solar active regions to this solar-cycle variation. Methods. To do so, we identify the local flows around active regions in the horizontal flow maps obtained from correlation tracking of granulation in SDO/HMI continuum images. We compute the forward-modeled travel-time perturbations caused by these inflows using 3D sensitivity kernels. In order to compare with the observations, we average these forward-modeled travel-time perturbations over longitude and time in the same way as the measured travel times. Results. The forward-modeling approach shows that the inflows associated with active regions may account for only a fraction of the solar-cycle variations in the north-south travel-time measurements. Conclusions. The travel-time perturbations caused by the large-scale inflows surrounding the active regions do not explain in full the solar-cycle variations seen in the helioseismic measurements of the meridional circulation. Keywords: Sun: activity -- Sun: helioseismology

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2022

Viscous inertial modes on a differentially rotating sphere: Comparison with solar observations

In a previous paper we studied the effect of latitudinal rotation on solar equatorial Rossby modes in the beta-plane approximation. Since then, a rich spectrum of inertial modes has been observed on the Sun, which is not limited to the equatorial Rossby modes and includes high-latitude modes. Here we extend the computation of toroidal modes in 2D to spherical geometry, using realistic solar differential rotation and including viscous damping. The aim is to compare the computed mode spectra with the observations and to study mode stability. At fixed radius, we solve the eigenvalue problem numerically using a spherical harmonics decomposition of the velocity stream function. Due to the presence of viscous critical layers, the spectrum consists of four different families: Rossby modes, high-latitude modes, critical-latitude modes, and strongly damped modes. For each longitudinal wavenumber m<4, up to three Rossby-like modes are present on the sphere, in contrast to the equatorial beta plane where only the equatorial Rossby mode is present. The least damped modes in the model have eigenfrequencies and eigenfunctions that resemble the observed modes; the comparison improves when the radius is taken in the lower half of the convection zone. For radii above 0.75R and Ekman numbers E<10^{-4}, at least one mode is unstable. For either m=1 or m=2, up to two Rossby modes are unstable when the radial dependence of the Ekman number follows a quenched diffusivity model (E=2. 10^{-5} at the base of the convection zone). For m=3, up to two Rossby modes can be unstable, including the equatorial Rossby mode. Although the 2D model discussed here is highly simplified, the spectrum of toroidal modes appears to include many of the observed solar inertial modes. The self-excited modes in the model have frequencies close to those of the observed modes with the largest amplitudes.

astro-ph.SR↗